Pre-assigning participants in Teams meeting Breakout Rooms
Breakout rooms allow a meeting organizer to split your attendees into multiple online rooms for discussion and collaboration in Teams.
Meeting organizers who schedule a meeting can create breakout rooms in advance then pre-assign members to the breakout rooms.
Creating breakout rooms in advance of a meeting
- Using the Microsoft Teams desktop software, in the left column, select Calendar. Open the Teams meeting you scheduled. If the meeting uses a channel, all attendees must be individually listed as required attendees in the meeting for pre-assignment. From the top, click or tap the Breakout rooms tab.
- Click or tap the Create rooms button.
- A prompt appears to create breakout rooms. Select the number of breakout rooms to create. You can create up to 50 breakout rooms. Click or tap the Add rooms button.
- The rooms are created. Click or tap the Assign participants button.
- Choose how you want participants assigned to rooms. If you select automatically, Microsoft Teams will place the participants into the rooms at random. If you select manually, you can assign participants to specific rooms. For the next steps, manual breakout rooms assignment will be shown. If you select the automatically option, skip to Step 12.
- Click or tap Next.
- Microsoft Teams starts creating the breakout rooms. After a moment, you are presented with the rooms. Click or tap the Assign participants button.
- Hover over the name of the participant to reveal the person's checkbox and select the checkbox.
- The assign room drop-down menu appears. Select a room for this participant. You can hover over each participant then check the checkbox, allowing you to select multiple persons to add them all to a single breakout room at once.
- When done with manual assignment, click or tap the Assign button.
- You will be asked to move participants to the breakout rooms. Click or tap Move.
- Microsoft Teams assigns the participants into breakout rooms.
If you want to rename the rooms...
- Click or tap the three-dots/more actions icon.
- Select Edit.
- A prompt appears to give the room a new name. Enter the new name then click or tap Save.
- Click or tap the three-dots/more actions icon.
- You have created breakout rooms and preassigned participants to them. Click or tap the Close button.
Setting a Time Limit for Breakout Rooms
The Breakout Rooms Timer automatically moves members back to main meeting. The meeting organizer can set the timer in Breakout Rooms by following these steps:
- From the Breakout rooms tab, click or tap the gear icon to reveal the Room Settings menu.
- Click or tap the toggle to activate "Set a time limit."
- Choose a time limit from the hours and minutes drop-down menus.
- Click or tap the "x" icon to save the settings.
Seeing issues with Breakout Rooms?
If you encounter any issues with Breakout Rooms, please contact the IT Services TechSquad.